Given the number of people reported lost or missing each year, Ken DeFoor, search coordinator for Texas EquuSearch, gave a timely presentation recently on the group’s core mission - to provide volunteer search and recovery resources to law enforcement agencies during searches for missing loved ones.

DeFoor told the group that most speakers give upbeat talks with an inspirational message. He apologized for not being able to present that type of speech.

“Folks, I can’t give you that today. What I’m giving you today is life — this is the way it really is,” said a somber DeFoor. “While we’re sitting here enjoying our lunches today, I can promise you at the office right now we’re getting calls from people with missing loved ones who can’t be found.”

DeFoor began by giving a brief history of TES and its founder, Tim Miller.

“In September of 1984, 16-year-old Laura Miller was abducted, raped and murdered not far from her home in League City,” said DeFoor.

“When Tim reported his daughter missing to the local law enforcement agency, they said ‘Don’t worry about it, she’s just a runaway, go home, sit back and she’ll come home after while.’

“Tim’s agonizing wait lasted 17 long months. He kept looking toward law enforcement for answers that were never forthcoming.”

After 17 months, DeFoor said Laura’s remains were found in a field laying alongside the remains of three other women in an area between Galveston and Houston.

The area has now been dubbed “The Killing Fields,” explained DeFoor, because over the years, there have been some 30 young women’s bodies found in the area.

Almost 10 years after his daughter went missing, Miller — an avid horseman — volunteered to help search on horseback for a missing girl named Laura Smithers.

After that effort, friends suggested Miller begin an organization to help search for missing people on horseback.

Taking the suggestion to heart, Miller began the non-profit organization Texas EquuSearch in 2000, initially as a search group on horseback, with the motto “Lost is Not Alone.” DeFoor said the double U in EquuSearch originally represented inverted horseshoes.

The organization has since evolved into a nationwide force that includes not only horse owners, but business owners, medics, firefighters, pilots, housewives, electricians, students and many others, all of whom serve as volunteers.

“I totally appreciate what volunteers do,” said DeFoor. “I have always been and always will be a firm believer in the adage that volunteers are not unpaid because they’re worthless, they’re unpaid because they’re priceless.”

As the organization has grown and changed over the years, DeFoor said very little of the work TES does is on horseback anymore.

“Very, very seldom do we ever use horses anymore,” said DeFoor. “We now use boats, ATVs, foot-searchers, airplanes, helicopters, side-scan sonar, and ground-penetrating radar.”

Referring to the recent search for 2-year-old Devon Davis in Liberty County, DeFoor said the drone aircraft that found the toddler’s remains is one of the group’s most unique and important pieces of equipment.

The remote-controlled aircraft is outfitted with a camera in its nose, perfect for searching areas that may be impossible to reach on foot.

“It is phenomenal what this type of equipment can do,” he said.

DeFoor said the resources available to TES are greater than any law enforcement agency’s because of the immense network of volunteers at its disposal.

Currently there are 1,200 TES members in the Texas area, with hundreds of additional members spread throughout the United States.

Since its inception in 2000, the group has performed well over 1300 searches, according to DeFoor.

The group is currently helping to try to find the body of a woman in Mississippi who is thought to have died under criminal circumstances.

“The FBI credits Texas EquuSearch with having the best “find” record of any search and recovery organization in the United States,” said DeFoor. “I think that says a whole lot about the organization.”

DeFoor stressed the point that TES is a search and recovery organization, distinctly different from search and rescue, even though they do occasionally find a missing person alive.

DeFoor said TES only responds to a scene if they have been notified by a family who requests their presence, or if law enforcement requests help with a search.

Carefully trained not to interfere with investigations, DeFoor, a former investigator and law officer himself, explained that TES works hand-in-hand with authorities.

“We never, ever go out to search for someone until we have checked with the local law enforcement first,” said DeFoor. “We are not investigators. We are searchers.”

DeFoor said all of the TES members go through extensive training before they are allowed to participate in a search.

“We know what you do if you find a crime scene on a search — and that’s nothing, except walk back out of that area in the same footprints that you walked in,” he said.

The group performs four types of searches:

• For children who may have wandered away from home or been abducted;

• people with Alzheimer’s or dementia patients;

• in situations where foul play is suspected;

• or in evidentiary searches (to help search for evidence).

“Law enforcement does not have the manpower, nor do they have the time to search a 500 acre field for a cartridge shell,” said DeFoor. “We do.”

It is a tough job and can be very emotionally draining at times, DeFoor said, as he shared the story of a woman who cried on his shoulder and asked him to please find her sister. They found her sister’s body three days later stuffed in a foot locker in the woods.

While it was a terrible situation, DeFoor said he knew the woman found comfort in the fact that at least she had closure.

DeFoor said the TES gets five to eight requests a day, and while they can’t go out on every search, he knows the organization is making a difference in the lives of people who often have nowhere else to turn for help.

“Tim Miller, and people like him, are my heroes,” said DeFoor. “They have taken a situation that is so gut wrenching — that tears the very heart out of someone — and they have taken their experience and turned it into an organization that now helps other families who have lost loved ones under similar circumstances.”

For information on how to become a member, or to make a donation, call TES at 281-309-9500, or visit the group’s website at www.txeq.org.